


Tombstone

by eruthiel



Category: MarsCorp (Podcast)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canonical Character Death, Dead People, Dubious Science, M/M, Non-Graphic Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 22:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14778044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eruthiel/pseuds/eruthiel
Summary: While attempting to bring Tom back from the dead, Colin reminisces about their former relationship and gets a little freaked out.





	Tombstone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trashfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trashfire/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Project](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10546502) by [Trashfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trashfire/pseuds/Trashfire). 



> this is for fallon! sorry it was a long time coming buddy, i really REALLY hope you like it! ;3
> 
> a little flashback set during trashfire's fic "Project," go read that for context, it's v good! title from "Science Fiction" by Church of the Cosmic Skull.

It was nearly an hour ago that David slunk off to the robot encampment. Surely that was enough time for him to have smuggled the body back to the lab and taken care of most of the really grisly preparations, right?

Colin was waiting next door in his old quarters, supposedly making preparations of his own, but in fact leafing lazily through its most recent occupant's stash of painfully bland erotic pamphlets. He was as bored as anything, and itching to go get in on the fun, but not if it meant standing there holding a wound closed while David sewed it up, or something equally gross and demeaning. It wasn't that he was squeamish or anything like that, not at all; he would just prefer to postpone his involvement until the, well, the less glamorous portion of the project was safely taken care of by somebody else.

He hadn't actually seen the body yet, since he hadn't even been on the base when all that weird alien parasite stuff went down. From the sound of it, the employee in question had been more or less eviscerated by some kind of monster even before the robots got their clumsy metal hands on it. And who could say what further damage those silly little tinpots had inflicted on his specimen before David managed to retrieve it? There might not be enough raw material left to work with.

Still, David's scientific gifts had never failed him before. If anybody could get the corpse into a fit state to be reanimated, that boy probably could.

Colin sighed. If David wasn't ready by now, he'd better hurry up, because he was done waiting. Chucking the pamphlets back under the bed where he'd found them, he headed out into the empty corridor, feeling only _slightly_ aroused. He generally found it was best to be a _little_ bit turned on during risky experiments – not so much that it became a distraction, of course, just enough to add an extra layer of excitement to the whole thing.

In seconds, he was outside the lab. He listened at the door for a moment, trying to determine just how far along the preparation process inside had gotten, but he could hear nothing except the familiar anxious bouncing of David's knee against the table. Colin shrugged to himself, before arranging his face into a charming smile and quickly tousling his own hair the way he knew David liked it best. He believed in always making a good entrance when possible, even if it was only for the benefit of his devoted assistant and a lifeless corpse.

Finally he pushed open the door and stepped over the threshold, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the brilliant laboratory lights.

The scene he found inside the lab was, frankly, a little disappointing. There was David, sitting beside the slab, up to his elbows in entrails, looking even more pallid and miserable than usual. Having whipped his head round in alarm at the sound of the door opening, he was relieved to see that it was only his best buddy come to make everything okay, instead of an angry mob come to throw him back in prison for fooling around with dead bodies.

And speaking of dead bodies, laid upon the slab itself was – not the neatly prepared, clean, stitched-up specimen he'd been hoping for, but a gruesome and mangled mass of Martian, split open across the middle like a pomegranate. Colin's smile faded as he stepped closer and his eyes came to rest on the slack, ashen face attached to this mess, and it dawned upon him that he knew this man. Or rather, he'd once known the boy who had become the man who had become the corpse now drenched in its own drying blood.

When David had told him about the recently killed employee whose remains were taken by the robots, he hadn't mentioned the name. Or maybe he had and Colin just hadn't been paying attention by then, too distracted by the opportunity to really go to town on some dead idiot, knowing the robots would get blamed if it all went horribly wrong. Either way, the upshot was that Colin was taken by surprise – though he did a good job of disguising it – when he recognised the face of Tom Dalling.

Even notwithstanding the obvious mortal injuries, the last ten years had clearly not been as forgiving to Tom as they had to certain other people Colin could name. For a moment he even thought he was looking at Tom's distinguished father, who had been a much older man when he finally kicked the bucket. But no, this was definitely Dalling Junior, even though most of his hair was as grey as his skin, and his ripped-open abdomen was substantially meatier than it had been when they first became acquainted over ten years ago. Time seemed to slow down, David and the lab itself to melt away, as Colin found himself reliving that night in an instant.

He could still see Tom exactly as he was back then: square-jawed, clean-cut, noticeably tall and sturdily built but trim, with bundles of youthful vigour and naivety – these last being the main traits Colin found attractive in a potential plaything, albeit twenty-two was older than he usually liked them.

They were first formally introduced at a party, not long after the death of Dalling Senior, and naturally Tom made an instant strong impression in Colin's mind. David was being a particularly sour little brat that night – as he always was when pulled from the sanctuary of the science department and forced to socialise with his perceived inferiors – so naturally the arrival of an equally handsome and slightly more respectful young man was a welcome distraction from Colin's babysitting duties.

Tom was initially wary and somewhat resistant to his advances, but fortunately his recent bereavement and his abrupt promotion to head of technology left him unusually vulnerable to an expert assault on his self-esteem. After a little light negging, almost anybody would be putty in Colin's hands. In the end, Tom was no exception, though he took a little longer to win round and was decidedly gruffer about it than most.

The first few times they spoke, he was stiffly polite, before phasing rapidly into open resentment of Colin's breezy disregard for formalities. It turned out Tom Dalling was a big fan of formalities.

That made it all the more fun to lean in close to him – maybe in a quiet corner at a party, or while everyone else was arguing loudly during the weekly heads of department meeting, at which Colin was no longer the baby of the group – and softly call him _Thomas,_ in a way which implied far more intimacy and affection than the popular abbreviation ever could. It was fun to go to pat him on the elbow, pretend to miss, and end up stroking his lower back instead. It was fun to subtly remind him that his mother was a Red and watch him demonstrate the colour all over his face.

And it was fun, at the time, to watch the stress of managing the technology department gradually start to take its toll on him. More and more often when they had their little encounters, Tom was unshaven or smelled vaguely of stale sweat. He didn't exactly age overnight, but he started to look tired, every day, in a way he never had before. Somehow it only made Colin even more excited to play with him.

Most of all, it was fun when Tom finally snapped and shoved Colin up against a wall, fists balled in his lab coat, blue eyes narrowed to furious slits. Colin didn't remember exactly what had tipped his quarry over the edge. He only remembered smiling, slowly, and letting Tom feel for himself exactly how much he was enjoying this new development.

All his hard work was instantly worth it, just to watch the anger on Tom's face rapidly give way to surprise, embarrassment, and the shadow of a smile that suggested he was more enthusiastic about the opportunity now presenting itself than he cared to let on. That was as far as they went on that particular day, and for a few days afterwards, until the unspoken tension between them became too much. Answering a knock on the door of his quarters at twenty to midnight on a Friday night, Colin was delighted to find Tom hovering sheepishly in the corridor.

"Oh, hello," he said innocently, leaning with one elbow against the doorframe to block it. "To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure, Thomas?"

Tom's frown deepened. "Can you just let me in? I'd rather not draw too much attention!" (This came as something of a surprise, since to the untrained ear he was still speaking in that usual semi-yell which appeared to run in the family.)

"Well, sure," Colin shrugged, his innocent smile still unimpeached. He pulled aside to let Tom through, only allowing himself the tiniest 'I told you so' smirk as he shut the door and turned to look at the young man now shifting awkwardly from foot to foot in the middle of his quarters.

The situation was much as he'd suspected all along. Tom already had a fearsome base-wide reputation for meticulously enforcing every word of the manual upon his underlings in the technology department, which led many to assume that he would be equally controlling in the bedroom, but Colin always knew better. After all, he himself was testament to the fact that the truly power-hungry might regard rules and regulations as nothing more than a bore and an impediment. No, Tom's extreme loyalty to the manual was the result of a desperation not for power, but for order – a craving Colin was more than happy to fulfil.

He had the younger man almost fully undressed and at his mercy before Tom suddenly sat up bolt upright – his spine was never known to curve – and declared in that silly shouty way of his that _you'd better not try any funny business, mister smooth-talker science man, I don't want to wake up on a slab with some weird vegetable growing out of me._ Colin told him to _stop giving me ideas – for that matter, shut your mouth entirely before I have to teach you some manners._

It worked, at least in part. Tom was much quieter after that, and much quicker to do as he was told. It was true that he still made quite a lot of noise when they actually got down to it. Even more than a decade later, Colin still shivered to remember the long, low growl he emitted; the broad fingers tangling in his hair; the muscles tensing in his flat stomach under a thick layer of soft, dark fuzz. It was all so perfect that Colin had to force himself to pull back and look down at his handsome catch, not so very intimidating if one only knew how to handle him.

 _Call me angel._ Tom obeyed with a note of mockery in his voice, making Colin cackle. _That's what your father used to call me._ Tom could only glare at him, too far gone to be really angry at that moment, though Colin knew he would probably have to answer for it later.

Well, probably not any more, he realised, coming back to the present day with a start. Out of the corner of his eye he could still see David trembling. On the slab, Tom's ruined body was almost imperceptibly sliding apart, his discoloured organs slipping over one another as his body slowly lost its shape. Left alone for much longer it would slump into little more than a pile of useless bloodied tissue and broken bones.

This was how they all ended up, Colin thought, his skin crawling. Okay, so it wasn't always this violent or bloody, but this was what a human being _was,_ at the end of the day. This was where he, too, was supposed to end up. Unless somebody did something about it, to stop death in its tracks. Unless _he_ did something about it _right now._

Tom's mouth was hanging open. It was hard not remember the way it used to taste, the way his lips used to feel; it was hard not to wonder if you'd be able to taste death on them now.

There was no more time to reminisce. Tom might never be restored to the way he used to be, but he could still be reassembled into something like life. Smiling broadly, Colin clapped David on the shoulder before turning away to look for the staple gun. That was what they needed, he thought, something nice and solid and purposeful to pin everything back together, to hold things _still._  And it was a good excuse to look anywhere besides at the slab, with its nightmarish conflation of past fun and future suffering.

It wouldn't have to be this way much longer, Colin thought. Soon the power would be in his hands, all for him and nobody else to decide who lives and dies, not the passage of time, not anyone. Tom Dalling's death and un-death would be the event to change everything.


End file.
